1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a refrigerator that is able to store food at a low point of temperature and to remove bacteria of the food stored in a storage room effectively, to maintain the storage room clean.
2. Background Art
Generally, a refrigerator is an electric appliance that can store food at a low temperature to preserve food fresh for a relatively long time. Based on statuses of stored items, which are the food, cold air is controlled to preserve them frozen or refrigerated.
The cold air supplied to the inside of the refrigerator is generated by heat exchange of refrigerant, and it is constantly supplied to the inside of the refrigerator while a cycle configured of compression, condensation, expansion and evaporation is performed repeatedly. The supplied refrigerant is uniformly transported into the refrigerator by convection, such that the food located in the refrigerator may be preserved at a desired temperature.
Such a refrigerator may be categorized, based on a structure of freezer and refrigerator compartments provided therein, into a traditional top freezer type refrigerator, a side by side refrigerator, and a bottom freezer type refrigerator.
The traditional top freezer type refrigerator includes a refrigerator compartment located on a top thereof and a refrigerator compartment located at a bottom thereof. The side by side type refrigerator includes freezer and refrigerator compartments located side by side.
The bottom freezer type refrigerators have been used a lot in North America and Europe. Such a bottom freezer type refrigerator includes a large-sized refrigerator compartment located on a top and a freezer compartment smaller than the refrigerator compartment located at a bottom. Such a refrigerator includes a case having at least one storage room formed therein and a door rotatably coupled to the case to selectively open and close the storage room.
The storage room of the refrigerator is typically partitioned into freezer and refrigerator compartments. Behind the storage room may be arranged an evaporator for generating cold air by heat-exchanging with air inside the storage room and a fan for blowing the air inside the storage room into the evaporator and for re-storing the heat-exchanged cold air into the storage room.
Moreover, a variety of functions for user convenience may be provided. To realize such functions, a home bar may be provided in the door or a plurality of baskets may be provided in a rear surface of the door, to store or keep a proper amount of food or food containers in the door.
In such a refrigerator vegetables and fruits, fish, various food materials and cooked-food may be stored. Unless the storage room is cleaned periodically, the refrigerator might be full of unpleasant smells generated from the variety of food stored in the storage room, and bacteria and viruses might reproduce. Because of this, sanitation could be poor and the user might have an unpleasant feeling.
Also, bacteria and the like might spread into the other food or move inside the refrigerator along the cold air circulation. Because of this, sanitation inside the refrigerator might be poor.